4 Simple & Actionable Tips to Improve Your Wellness
One thing that drives me crazy about the natural health space is how overwhelming it can be. "Do 20 jumping jacks in the center of a pentagon painted on your floor with a virgin’s blood if you don’t want to get cancer" or "If you ever eat spinach again your great grandson will be lose his left leg when he turns 11." Maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but you get the idea 😂
Nothing shuts someone down faster than being bombarded with too much information, too many tasks, or too many things to cut out. Trust me, I get it—I still struggle with this.
But today, we’re going to talk about some simple changes almost anyone can make to improve their wellness. The key to becoming healthier and reducing toxins in your life is taking small, realistic steps.
The little habits you practice every day matter more than the big ones you tackle once in a while.
Change Your Phone Lighting
The light that you consume is as important, if not more important, than the food you eat. Let me explain.
The LED and fluorescent lighting that has taken over our technology, gyms, work environments, and shopping centers is terrible for our health, here’s why:
Our bodies have something called melanopsin, a light sensitive protein that helps regulate circadian rhythms. Melanopsin is found in our eyes, blood vessels, skin, and subcutaneous fat and is linked to leptin (hormone that regulates body weight and energy) pathways. Blue light is great at turning on and off the growth and metabolism pathways in the body, which is how blue light can contribute to obesity (just one of its negative impacts).
According to Jack Kruse, Neurosurgeon and CEO, the light in which you live and eat in plays a major role in the free radical signaling that’s made in the respiratory proteins in your mitochondria. The electromagnetic footprint that’s placed in food by photosynthesis is actually changed by the light environment that you eat in. The entire food web is built around solar EMF, when you introduce manmade EMF, either through your eyes, skin, or gut, you change the signaling of the being. When you change the signaling, you change everything about the ecosystem.
Ways blue light effects your health:
Disrupts circadian rhythm
Reduces natural production of melatonin
Alters dopamine production
Causes hypoxia (low levels of oxygen) in your cells
& so much more 🤯
Now, I know it’s nearly impossible to fully escape blue light, I mean, what are we going to do, never go to any gym or store again? Avoid street lights and stop going to work? Obviously that’s not an option.
But what we can do is take simple steps to reduce our exposure. The first step being, change your phone settings. No matter what, your phone is going to produce some blue light, but by changing your display settings to sleep mode or black and grey, you can reduce the amount of blue light you're consuming. Then, I would work on the following:
Switch out any fluorescent or LED lighting in your home to full spectrum light bulbs
Purchase blue light reducing screen protectors for computers and TVs
Dim lights, use red lights, or candle light at night
Wear blue light blocking glasses (not the cheap ones from Target, try this or this)
If you’re interested in learning more about the health impacts of blue light, you can search Jack Kruse on your podcast app. The information in this post was gathered from here.
Recommended podcasts:
Switch Toothpaste
Ah yes, the good ole fluoride debate. I have a question…if fluoride prevents cavities and it’s in our tap water, then why do people still get cavities?
Fluoride is a known neurotoxin, meaning it alters the function of your nervous system. It can cross the blood-brain barrier and actually accumulate in your brain, impacting cognitive function and even lowering IQs. Here are some other interesting functions of fluoride:
Interferes with the mineralization process of teeth and bones, replacing the hydroxyapatite crystals in tooth enamel with fluorapatite, weakening your teeth
Slows down enzymes involved in energy production, neurotransmitter synthesis (the process of creating neurotransmitters in neurons), and antioxidant defense mechanisms (protect the body from oxidative stress by neutralizing free radicals), leading to cellular dysfunction
Disrupts collagen synthesis, impairing the flexibility and strength of connective tissues, teeth, and bones
Damages DNA, increasing the risk of mutations
There’s a lot more too, but I won’t bore you with a long list. Anyway, this is why simply switching to toothpaste without fluoride can improve your health. To take it a step further, look into water filtering systems. There are many different levels of water filters, so you have to make sure you get one that filters out fluoride.
My favorite ZERO fluoride toothpastes:
Remineralizing Tooth Powder - This one is my ultimate favorite! My teeth noticeably feel better when I use it. It contains hydroxyapatite which helps rebuild tooth enamel.
Eco Dent DailyCare - This tooth powder is also affordable and it’s in a bottle so the powder doesn’t turn to mud from putting a wet toothbrush in it. It’s made with baking soda so it helps whiten your teeth.
NOBS Toothpaste Tablets - This brand uses nano-hydroxyapatite which is the synthetic form of it which allegedly has smaller particles that can penetrate tooth enamel more effectively.
David’s Hydroxyapatite Toothpaste - Also uses nano-hydroxyapatite.
Read Ingredients
Get into the habit of reading the damn ingredients. I know it’s inconvenient at first, but come one, our ancestors used to have to walk miles for water and fight bears! You can at least read the ingredient label to make sure you’re not eating poison 😏
When you first start reading ingredients, it can be confusing. That’s why I suggest picking 2 or 3 ingredients to focus on. Once you get the hang of avoiding those, pick a couple more. I promise, it gets way easier! And you start to get to know which products (and sections of the grocery store) are garbage.
Step 1: Choose one meal that won’t have any processed foods, just whole foods. For example, only eat yogurt with fruit and eggs for breakfast. Once you get that down, do the same for lunch.
Step 2: Choose a couple ingredients that you will no longer eat. When you see these ingredients in a product, immediately put it back on the shelf and look for a different brand. Sometimes, they all have garbage in them and you have to mourn the loss of that treat. Sorry. (That was me with Hot Pockets 🥲)
Step 3: Continue seeking out information about ingredients and continue to remove them from your diet. You’ll start feeling much better and even begin to think clearer.
Top ingredients that I avoid:
Seed oils - I avoid these at all costs, especially soybean oil and canola oil. I prefer cooking with butter, but if I do use oil it’s macadamia or avocado oil.
Sucralose - This is an artificial sweetener that’s in almost EVERYTHING. Energy drinks, candy, protein powder, soda, the list goes on and on. It breaks up your DNA, damages your intestinal barrier, causes inflammation, and has been linked to cancer. I highlighted sucralose here, but I avoid all artificial sweeteners.
Artificial flavors & colors
Natural flavors
BHT
To learn more about ingredients, check out Food Babe!
Choose Glass or Stainless Steel
Did you know that your liver, kidneys, and brain all contain microplastics? What's even more concerning is that your brain has 20 times more microplastics than any other organ. This is because plastic is fat-soluble, and since your brain is primarily made of fat, it tends to accumulate more. Unlike other tissues, the brain can't detoxify itself effectively, so once microplastics enter, they’re there permanently.
Yvonne Burkart, a toxicologist, appeared on The Diary of a CEO podcast to discuss the presence of toxins in our everyday products. While she acknowledged that there is no clear evidence on how these plastics affect our brains, her hypothesis is that they may increase the risk of cognitive decline. Since brain issues often don’t appear until later in life, the long-term effects may not be fully understood yet. Basically, humans using plastic to this level is one big experiment. And all we know is that they accumulate in your body and can’t get out.
Bottled water is a major source of microplastics. As Yvonne Burkart puts it, “Plastic is not meant to be permanent, but it kind of is,” when discussing the topic. Certain conditions can accelerate the leaching of microplastics. For example, leaving a plastic bottle in the sun causes UV light to break down the plastic, releasing more microplastics. Physical pressure, like squeezing the bottle, and heat from leaving it in the car can also trigger this leaching process.
Instead of using plastic, treat yourself to glass or stainless steel water bottle, cups, and food storage containers.
Learn more by searching Yvonne Burkart on your podcast app or check out the episode referenced in this post here.
The Takeaway
I’m going to leave you with these 4 tips and I challenge you to at least try a couple of them. The point is, you can take really small steps like these to improve your overall wellness. And by starting small, you’ll find that it becomes easier and easier to take on bigger steps, like investing in technology, supplements, and programs that can help improve your health.
Leave me a comment to let me know what you think of this post :)
